Adaptations
by Klondike Aura
Summary: A collection of drabbles set after the events of Variations.
1. Duck's Premiere

Fakir sits in the dark, leaving him alone despite his seat in the full theater. When was the last time he was on this side of the curtain? It must have been the trip to see the Eleki Troupe. But the trip didn't leave him knotted inside, his fingers softly drumming against the abstract swan-shaped metalwork in his lap.

The orchestra warms up, snippets of Tchaikovsky floating in. Fakir lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

He applauds Erina's entrance, jolting when he first sees her. She holds up frail hands, steps back on timid toes, and Fakir swears she trembles when Siegfried reaches for his Odette. He's glad for the black cover of spectator. What would Erina tell him if she could see? "Did you think I _couldn't_ dance Odette?"

But the tension only builds, weighing down on his innards. While Erina and the new top danseur are superb, he itches to see the swans.

A hush of recognition falls over the audience, everyone intimately familiar with the song but only now realizing it was born here in Swan Lake. It does well to cover Fakir's soft gasp as the moment he anticipated arrives.

The cygnets come forward, Duck standing entwined with them in the third spot from the left. She fits her steps precisely with her partners, aglow with the movement. Fakir smiles in her stead, knowing that she must be bursting at the seams under her practiced restraint.

"Fakir!" she cheers once the curtain finally falls, rushing forward to meet him. Somehow they remain balanced even as she throws her arms around his neck and nearly crushes him. He manages to move the swan sculpture around just in time to keep it from being sandwiched between them. "Fakir, it was wonderful! We all got it _just right_ and it was so _fun_ and Erina told me it was really beautiful even though _she_ was really beautiful and-"

Fakir holds her back and laughs and tries to tell her in return that it was wonderful and she was wonderful and he has a gift for her premiere but he doesn't worry. He knows they'll have time walking home beneath the curtain of night, the dark bringing solitude once more.


	2. Coffee Break

Autor groans, still groggy and sore. "Must be getting weak in my old age," he thinks, stretching and cracking this or that back into proper alignment. The library's smothering silence redoubles every creak and pop. He straightens his glasses and rubs at his eyes. How much time did he lose? What time is it now?

He lifts a hand to shield from the ray of sunlight piercing through the window. He deducts that he slept at least an hour, maybe two. His stomach roars, and he blushes at the blasphemous volume.

"Would you please be quiet?" hisses a voice in pinched imitation.

"Do you have to do that every time you see me?" Autor whispers back at Erina's sudden presence, his chair making a dull scrape against the carpeted floor. "And what are you doing here? If you're not diligent in practice, that Duck will steal your spot."

Erina scoffs. "So what if she does? But right now you've got slobber all over your favorites and your stomach's about to eat itself."

She pats his shoulder and hoists him up. Her methods leave her usual balanchine grace to be desired, but Autor can't argue effectiveness. And it could be worse: she could be carrying him bridal style. He may not have full control of his feet under her guidance, but he's still walking.

Has he been here before? Autor huffs to himself. Like he's the sort to run around to every frivolous restaurant in town. Even if this one did feel more like a house than most restaurants. Erina puts a cup in front of him, and his nose wrinkles in distaste.

"This isn't tea."

"Very observant."

"It's not funny, Erina."

"It's only coffee. It's not going to kill you." Though as soon as she says it, Erina wonders if maybe it would. The shock of something that isn't Autor's particular blend of tea might be too much for his system to handle. She's as sure as the world is round that Autor would one day die of routine deficiency.

Autor wrinkles his nose again, waiting for the offensive aroma to dissipate.

"Do you want some sugar?" Erina suggests.

He doesn't say a word, but she laughs at how his eyebrows furrow and his lips press.

"Well, at least you're awake now," she goes.


	3. Absence

"My princess..."

It's not the first time Mytho found Rue sitting on the balustrade late at night. He knew for certain that his heart was fully restored; he could feel it still a moment when he saw her silhouetted by the moonlight before raising the dilemma of disturbing her peace or leaving her be. Tonight, he draws close to his wife and offers his comforting embrace.

Rue, for her part, smiles and reaches for her husband's arms. She leans against his chest and idly scratches near his heart. She smiles at feeling it flutter.

Mytho chuckles. It's practically an inside joke and one of the things that just ended up being another way to cope.

"What's kept you up this night, dearest?" he asks.

Rue nuzzles into his chest with a sigh.

Mytho strokes her hair and lets it twist in his fingers, letting her take her time in answering.

"We haven't heard any word from her," Rue murmurs. "No one brought her to the wedding, and no one seems to know where she is."

Mytho dots kisses on the crown of Rue's head. "Oh Rue, please don't fret. Gold Crown is probably still waking up. Everyone is still separating what is story and what is life." He smooths his hand along her cheek, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "In the morning, why don't we send Fakir a letter? He and Duck might know how to find Uzura."

Rue huffs. "I still can't believe she didn't give him a piece of her mind."

"Like you would?" Mytho asks.

"Well, Duck is pretty stubborn, too," she answers, haughty.

Mytho leans in and kisses her cheek, smiling at the warmth there. "And I imagine Duck will be pretty stubborn about finding Uzura after we inform her that we haven't seen her. She and Fakir will be thinking clearer."

Rue's expression sours again.

"Hey, he is one of my knights now," Mytho says. "But I get the point. We'll write the letter in the morning?"

"All right," Rue relents.

But the royal couple sits on the balustrade a bit longer, lingering in hope under the moonlight.


	4. Talking in the Forge

Asking Duck for advice was a mistake. Fakir should have known it wouldn't go well. But who else could he turn to? Autor and Charon didn't remember, Erina was outside of this whole thing, and the only one he could really confide in on the matter, as always, was Duck.

He knew what her immediate suggestion was going to be as soon as she saw the letter from Mytho and Rue.

"I know it's different from before, but can't you see why I might not want to mess with stories right now?" he protests, somewhat grumbly.

"Well, yeah," Duck answers, fingers fidgeting with the letter. "The last time was different, though. We were inside the story, not writing it."

Fakir resumes his work, shaping a small piece of iron that would become part of what he hoped would be a nice door handle. No matter what, he found he prefers working to being still these days. "Even so, we weren't ourselves there. I don't want anything happening that we'd regret."

Duck's eyes widen a little. "You regret it?"

He hesitates then shortly sighs, thankful for the heat of the forge turning his cheeks red before this could. "I regret not being in control of myself. I don't know if I would have made the same choices Lohengrin wanted."

"I guess that's true," the ballerina admits. "Do you..."

"Hn?"

"Do you miss dancing?"

The blacksmith hesitates again before saying, "Of course I do. It's hard not to miss something I've done most of my life." He sighs again when he sees Duck wince. "Look, that isn't about you. You couldn't control what happened, either. What's done is done."

"So..." Duck starts again. "So it doesn't bother you to see me dance?"

"No. I like watching you dance."

She's kind of glad he turned back to his work while he said that. It made it easier for her to hide her quiet quack of surprise. "Anyway," she says, getting back on track. "We don't even know if you've got to write a story or if we've got to go in one again."

"Hn? What do you mean now?" Fakir asks, eyes still to his work.

"Maybe you could send a letter, too?" she suggests.

He drops his project in the water, admitting to himself with some satisfaction that it's the best curve he's done yet. "A letter," he repeats. "I haven't tried that."

"Do we know if they'll work the same way stories work?" Duck goes on. "Maybe you can just send one the same way you receive them."

He wipes the sweat from his brow. "Where would we send it to?"

"Well, what do the letters say when you get them?" she asks.

"They just have my name on them."

"Then why don't we try that?" Duck suggests, brightening some. "We could write a letter to Uzura and see if she sends anything back. That wouldn't be the same as a story, right?"

"I guess not."

"And if it doesn't work, then nothing bad'll happen, either, right?"

Fakir sighs heavily through his nose. "You're just not going to let up on this, are you?"

"I just want to try," she says, a bit calmer. "Because I miss Uzura, too. Don't you?"

He closes his eyes for just a moment and nods. "All right. All right, I'll write a letter. But only a letter and not tonight. I've still got work to do here."

"Oh, thank you, Fakir!" Duck yelps, reaching to give him a hug.

"Hold it!" he yelps right back, holding her an arm's length away. "You need to be more careful in the forge. What if I had been working iron?"

"Oh! Right!" she goes, stepping back again. "Wow, I was acting like a moron, wasn't I?"

Fakir frowns just a little. "Please don't call yourself that."

Duck blinks. "Huh? I'm surprised you didn't call me that, the way I wasn't thinking."

"Well, that wouldn't have made it right, either, now would it?"

Duck watches as Fakir finishes up and takes his heavy apron off. It seems like such a big change for a little thing. "Hey, Fakir?"

"Hn?"

"You know, you don't have to worry about anything from before with me. That's what we said, right? What's done is done."

Fakir nods. They did say that. Maybe he's worrying about some things too much. "All the same, I don't want to call you that anymore. So please don't call yourself that."

Duck smiles again, just a little, and reaches a hand out to him. "You hungry?"

He scoffs, finally smiling in the course of their conversation. "Yes, but not while I'm all sweaty." He pats her hand, and they leave the forge.


	5. The Weight of Remorse

Fakir always had trouble writing when it concerns Mytho.

A short note to Uzura took hardly any time. He never wronged her, not the way he did Mytho. Writing for Duck was a different matter; it happened automatically at first and then ran away with his heart. They've made their amends. Now it's only right to do the same for Mytho. Even when you're truly sorry, _especially_ if you're truly sorry, it can be hard to put it into words.

The crumpled apology attempts pile up higher and higher in his rubbish bin. His fingers and face are stained with ink, the result of holding his head in frustration. The oil of his lamp burns long after the rest of the lights in the house are snuffed.

But just as he takes a break to wash his face and turn in for the night, he looks at himself anew in the mirror. The last time Mytho saw him, he still wore the shameful past and was stuck beyond his control. And Mytho knighted him as that. The Prince had said to not let a past of wrongs invalidate the good he does now. It was the only time Mytho ever mentioned what Fakir had done, and he had implied forgiveness with the very words.

_I owe Mytho these words and the strength to write them_, he tells himself. _Did he knight me or not?_

That matter could be up for debate due to the nature of the story, but there's no doubt in Fakir's mind that Mytho intended to knight him. He still needs to earn that. He returns to his desk with new resolve and takes up the quill.

The words are like climbing a mountain barehanded, reliving every wrong he visited upon Mytho, every verbal and physical strike he delivered out of cowardice. He very carefully keeps out words like praying for forgiveness lest he accidentally manipulate Mytho to accept it against his will. He trembles enough to make the letters shaky, but he presses on. All the while he thinks, _If he believes I'm worthy to be his knight, then I must live up to that_. He barely lets the ink dry before folding the missive and sealing it away in its envelope. He scrawls the Prince's name on the front, opens _The Prince and the Raven_, and closes the letter in before he loses his nerve. Only then does Fakir finally sigh with relief.

The oil has burned out, leaving him to consider the anxiety of reply in the dark. But that weight is not as heavy as the sins he bared on the page. He returns to the washroom for his evening ablutions, glad he can wash his hands of this ink.


End file.
